I’M SO OLD I CAN REMEMBER LAST MONTH WHEN HE WAS A SEX SYMBOL, BUT YOU’RE NOT SEEING MUCH OF HIM NOW: What If I Trust Science and Don’t Trust Dr. Fauci? Neither Fauci, nor our Health Experts™ in general, have covered themselves with glory.

MARK PULLIAM: Revisiting William O. Douglas.

OOPS: Libya: A Catastrophe for Russia’s Pantsir S1 Air Defense System. “Believed to have been supplied to the Libyan strongman as early as last year by his backers in the Gulf, the Russian system was meant to be used as a trump card against Turkey’s combat unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) air interdiction operations. Yet, after a major GNA counteroffensive last month, and the retaking of the strategic Al-Watiya airbase and key suburbs in Tripoli, it became clear that the system had been trounced. Analysis of open source data has estimated that up to 9 Pantsir units were lost in quick succession to UAV strikes during May, with footage of the strikes going viral on social media. To add insult to injury, a tenth Pantsir system was dramatically captured by GNA forces, and to great fanfare paraded through Tripoli as a war trophy. It is speculated that the captured Pantsir’s final fate is to be picked apart for intelligence purposes.”

Usually, the best reason to buy Russian gear is that you can’t afford the good stuff.

THE POLICE AREN’T THERE TO PROTECT THE PUBLIC FROM CRIMINALS. THEY’RE THERE TO PROTECT CRIMINALS FROM THE PUBLIC: Nashville liquor store owner, 88, explains why she shot alleged shoplifter: ‘I’m fed up.’ “I did what I had to do, and I hope word gets out on the street that I’m fed up and I’m not taking it anymore. . . . You’ve got to stick up for yourself sometimes.”

REALCLEARINVESTIGATIONS: No Evidence Needed for Collusion Probe, Just a Pretext Devised by This Man. “Newly released documents reveal the FBI never had even preliminary evidence of a Trump campaign conspiracy with Russia, and instead used a rarely enforced statutory relic – the Foreign Agents Registration Act – as the legal rationale for opening investigations in 2016-2017 and surveilling Trump campaign aides. . . . Former FBI Director James Comey and his deputy Andrew McCabe have publicly testified they had sufficient evidence to justify investigating the Trump campaign for coordinating with Moscow to hack Clinton campaign emails and troll social media to influence the 2016 presidential election — a scheme that, if true, would have violated espionage laws and warranted serious felony charges. But the raft of new documents reveals that the actual basis for the cases was the suspicion that Trump campaign aides failed to file FARA forms with Washington bureaucrats and pay the required $305 in registration fees.”

Actually, I think this law should be used more, as there are a lot of people in DC now who are in volation of it.

REMEMBER THE MEDIA NARRATIVE DOESN’T REFLECT WHAT ACTUAL AMERICANS THINK: After riots, nearly 8 in 10 want to ‘restore order,’ blacks, Hispanics, and Democrats agree.

RECOVERY. “The national unemployment rate declined by 1.4 percentage points over the month to 13.3 percent but was 9.7 points higher than in May 2019. Nonfarm payroll employment increased in 46 states, decreased in Hawaii and the District of Columbia, and was unchanged in 3 states in May 2020. Over the year, nonfarm payroll employment decreased in all 50 states and the District.”

YEP:

CHANGE: Tennessee legislature passes “heartbeat” abortion bill, Gov. Lee to sign.

JOHN FUND:  AOC has a real primary challenger.

WHY ARE INSTITUTIONS OF HIGHER EDUCATION SUCH CESSPITS OF HATE? FSU Student Leaders Stick By Anti-Semitic Senate President.

TONY KATZ: AOC Admits: We Have To Lie To Beat Trump.

That’s true about a lot of things.

THIS IS ABOUT BRITAIN AND THE WUHAN CORONAVIRUS, BUT IT APPLIES TO MOST COUNTRIES AND MOST ISSUES: These people have no idea what they’re doing: Ex-Supreme Court judge LORD JONATHAN SUMPTION gives a devastating verdict on our political leaders’ handling of the crisis.

VIBRANT DIVERSITY: History teacher is one of three people killed by Reading terrorist as suspect is named as man who ‘fled Libya and was granted refugee status because he feared Islamists – before being jailed in UK.’

JOANNE JACOBS: Noah’s Ark goes to college. “Michael Goldstein imagines a new liberal arts college for students and professors who like to argue about ideas. He calls it Noah’s Ark College, because he’d insist that students and faculty be admitted or hired in pairs with one liberal and one conservative.”

ABSURD, ALL THE BEST PUBLIC HEALTH EXPERTS CAME OUT IN FAVOR OF THESE PROTESTS: SC protesters urged to ‘get tested immediately’ for COVID-19 after organizers get sick.

You do have to wonder about people who claim to think black lives matter but who encourage black people — who are more vulnerable to the Wuhan coronavirus — to engage in unsafe behavior. “Data from the South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control shows Black people make up 36% of the confirmed coronavirus cases in South Carolina. At the same time, 46% of the people who have died from the virus are Black, DHEC’s data shows.”

ROGER KIMBALL: Trump’s Silent Majority Needs To Speak Up To Defend America.

Trump also made several serious points. Above all, he drew a sharp contrast between what he stood for—ordered liberty underwritten by the rule of law—and what the Democrats stand for: defunding the police, the destruction of our heritage, and the divisive triumph of identity politics and economic immiseration.

“The unhinged left wing mob is trying to vandalize our history,” Trump said,
“desecrate our monuments, . . . tear down our statues and punish, cancel, and persecute anyone who does not conform to their demands for absolute and total control. We’re not conforming, that’s why we’re here, actually. This cruel campaign of censorship and exclusion violates everything we hold dear as Americans. They want to demolish our heritage so they can impose their new oppressive regime in its place. They want to defund and dissolve our police departments, think of that.”

Yes, think of that, In Minneapolis this weekend, where the police department is in a state of semi-paralysis, at least twelve people were shot and at least one died.

Plus, just because I couldn’t resist: “The fake news said that the rally was sparsely attended. Compared to what? Local authorities estimated that there were about 7,000 people attending. When Joe Biden delivered what was billed as a major economic speech outside of Philadelphia a few days ago, he drew 20 people. Two-zero.”

KAROL MARKOWICZ: The ‘cancel’ crew will come for you someday soon.

A moral panic is sweeping the nation. How we react to the pitchfork hordes will determine the fate of our country for a generation or longer.

We call what the hordes do to our fellow citizens “cancel culture,” but the term is far too cute to capture the cruel, mindless and life-destroying process taking place all around us in the name of “fighting racism.”

The tendency has been with us for some time, but the current, ­extra-crazed moment has accelerated its malignant energies: Locked in for months due to COVID-19, we re-emerged into a society more enraged and at war with itself than ever before.

Then the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis took the ideological madness to the next level. The great majority of Americans agreed that Floyd’s death was horrific and that the police officers responsible for it must be held to account. But that sane consensus wasn’t enough, as far as the cancel left was concerned: Enemies had to be found and eradicated.

It’s almost as if the enemies part is more important than the fighting-racism part.

CLOSE YOUR EYES AND THINK OF STALIN: Seattle’s Breakaway CHOP Now Also a Sexual Assault Crime Scene.

Maybe it was just an unplanned sexual encounter.

REMEMBER, JUST BECAUSE THERE’S NEAR-UNANIMITY ON SOMETHING IN THE MEDIA DOESN’T MEAN THAT’S WHAT ACTUAL AMERICANS THINK: Poll: Most African Americans prefer the term “all lives matter” over the term “black lives matter.” Note that richer, whiter people feel differently. Reminder: Class war in America is usually disguised as culture war, and culture war is often cloaked in talk of race.

OCEANIA HAS ALWAYS BEEN AT WAR WITH TEDDY ROOSEVELT:

● Shot: “I think that Teddy Roosevelt was a great American.”

—Hillary Clinton in a May 1, 2008 interview with Bill O’Reilly.

● Double-Shot: “It’s time to take a page from Teddy Roosevelt’s book and get our economy working for Americans again. That’s what I’ll do as president.”

—Hillary, as quoted in an October 28, 2015 Dow Jones Marketwatch.com article titled “Hillary Clinton wants to be Teddy Roosevelt.”

● Chaser: “Red paint was splashed at the statue of Theodore Roosevelt on the steps of the American Museum of Natural History early Thursday, according to cops.”

—The New York Post, October 26, 2017.

● Hangover: The Teddy Roosevelt statue will be removed from the Natural History Museum.

—NewsDio, quoting the New York Times, today.

UPDATE:

(Updated and bumped.)